PAKISTANI GENERALS MUST ACT BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE

Not many countries in the world would envy Pakistan for being constantly in the focus of international media—adversely. For Pakistan and its unexcelled ability to remain in the glare of international news a week, indeed, is a long time.

Only until recently with more than half of its population living under poverty line Pakistan was proud to have Shaukat Aziz as the richest prime minister in the world. And lately he has done it more proud by getting himself hard up to deserve mention as perhaps the only known gigolo prime minister in recent history.

The latest book on US Secretary of State “Twice as Good: Condoleezza Rice and Her Path to Power,” by Newsweek chief of correspondents and senior editor Marcus Mabry has brought on record the “other” hitherto unknown qualities of the Prime Minister as a Casanova. It has revealed to its readers that Dr Rice on her first visit to Pakistan in 2005 found herself face to face with Shaukat Aziz trying to bowl her over with his “gigolo” charm. She had to stare at him and cold water his hard on looks that he is reputed to employ to ‘conquer’ any woman in ‘two minutes.’

As if that was not enough to hang our heads in shame that we learnt through BBC that the Pakistani military’s peace-keeping contingent in strife-torn Congo traded gold for guns and armed the militia they were supposed to disarm. Though ISPR has rushed to deny it as baseless, however, looking at the land grabbing performance of the generals and their lust for riches, Congo gold would be no more than morsels for the troops trying to live up to the traditions set for them to religiously follow by their superiors.

Whatever, Pakistan has yet to get over with the most recent trauma of the worst orgy of mayhem by the armed thugs of the government in Karachi under the command and order of the Don of London’s Edgware as Daily Dawn’s columnist Ayaz Amir calls him. The prestigious London Economist (May 17) in a strong-worded indictment of the massacre has plausible reasons to believe that “the violence was perpetrated by Karachi’s ruling party, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), an ethnically-based mafia allied with General Pervez Musharraf. Its target was an anti-government rally planned for Karachi on May 12th, at which thousands of lawyers and opposition supporters were to protest against General Musharraf’s efforts to remove the head of Pakistan ‘s Supreme Court, Iftikhar Chaudhry. Mr Chaudhry was due to address the rally.”

In a further comment The Economist joins the wider media condemnation of the fact that while the carnage spread, killing scores and injuring hundreds, 15,000 strong police and paramilitary troops stood by, unwilling or restrained by the authorities to intervene to stop the free-for-all slaughter by the ethnic marauders. It is claimed by independent sources that the police and Rangers were ordered by the “high ups” to give a free hand and to let their ethnic gangsters stage a bloody bath to teach the judicial protestors a lesson against defiance of the General.

This is supported by the fact that the two main officers assigned for the maintenance of law and order in the province—the Inspector General of Police and the Home Secretary—an army brigadier—were busy holding the Chief Justice and his team of lawyers hostage at the Jinnah Airport after their attempt to kidnap him had failed. Moreover, Karachi administration was entirely managed by the MQM governor, his team of ministers and advisers while the Chief Minister had made himself conspicuous by his absence so that his face is not blackened any further.

There could not be more audacious a statement than the one made by the MQM Home Advisor who claimed on a television channel that it was he who had personally ordered laying of siege of the Sindh High Court by blocking all routes to it by parking huge containers to stop anti-Chief Justice rallies bulldozing into it. The actual motive obviously was to stop the Chief Justice from entering the Sindh High Court premises. How despicable MQM’s conduct was that while it continues to be condemned world wide by the international media, the people of Pakistan —including their stronghold of Karachi —protested against their behaviour by a voluntary total strike on their own as a mark of national condemnation of state sponsored fascism.

In this context The Economist is absolutely right in its observation: “If the MQM meant to deter General Musharraf’s opponents with violence, it failed”. Rather, it has helped the General—advertently or inadvertently—in digging his own grave. By playing his MQM card to save himself he has showed his true colour to his constituency—the army—which is predominantly Punjabi (more than 80 per cent of it being from Punjab) and also isolated MQM that under him was getting out of Sindh to became a national party without of course any legitimate credentials to it. Not only that, May 12 paved the ground for a nation wide all-party political movement against their uniformed mentor. “With an election due this year, Pakistani democracy is stirring from the coma it slipped into eight years ago, when General Musharraf seized power”, says Economist and the Chief Justice has finally shown the way by “telling a bullying general where to get off.”

While his standing abroad was fast becoming dubious as seen in the European Community’s censure of Pakistan on Kashmir in the European Parliament approved Emma Nicolson’s Report, domestically there has been a rapid transformation of him from a swashbuckling commando into a Shakespearean tragic comic character.

Apparently suffering from a deep seated paranoid, he is becoming more of a megalomaniac in his utterances, nor is there any substance in what he says. Having totally failed to perform, he wants to extend his stay in power by his pep talk. Eight years too late—perhaps out of his sheer fear of being prosecuted at some stage for committing act of treason under Article 6 –that he has now started parroting that he would not violate the constitution any more. This declaration in an interview to a private tv channel was sort of music to the ears keeping in mind his present existence being out of non-constitutional wedlock through an act most foul punishable with death since he blatantly betrayed the oath that he had taken as an army officer to “uphold the Constitution”.

Good news—though too late in the day—is to know that he “respects” the Constitution but his actions speak louder than his pious profession. He made a clown of himself when he repeated that he would not allow both the exiled former prime ministers to return home and participate in elections without telling to his viewers under what constitutional provision he could do that. How bankrupt his sense of proportion could be can be known from the fact that he wants the nation to believe that it is Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and his PLM (Q) clowns that are running the country and ruining it beyond reprieve. I am sure this a joke inflicted on a no doubt spineless prime minister who drives carnal pleasure taking it lying down from his Praetorian boss.

While saying that he forgets psycho-pathetically the fact that he is shredding the Constitution to pieces every day. Though no doubt self-appointed as President of Pakistan, he has scant regard for the rules of business and protocol of conduct. His usurpation of the Presidential Office does not entitle him to demean the Constitution by compromising his Presidential neutrality by his regular participation in dubiously contrived PML-Q meetings, addressing its rallies, attending its official functions and actively directing its politics as if he is its ex-officio chairman.

Both his international and domestic graphs have sunk lowest. According to Economist, in an authentic poll, privately held, the general fared worse. Asked which politician they most agreed with, 29% of respondents picked Ms Bhutto and 21.6% General Musharraf. Some analysts say that the recently held polls overstate the general’s popularity, since Pakistanis are afraid to speak ill of their uniformed ruler to an unknown questioner especially when newspapers are rampant with the blood-curdling woeful tales of missing persons picked up by the agencies for obvious reasons. “And he (GMP) is certainly less popular now than when the polls were taken.”

The other good news is that the General has ‘promised’ to the nation that he would not break his “promises” any more. He regretted that he reneged on his promise to the nation to take off his uniform by 31st December, 2004. According to him it was a tit-for-tat because MMA had vitiated the political atmosphere. As far as the issue of his uniform or second skin as he calls it is concerned, he will continue donning it since it has come to acquire the medicinal value of Viagra for a man who cannot function without it.

With a higher judiciary finally on its own having rediscovered its lost spine, the regime will find it hard to violate the constitution any more. The first test obviously will be the last for the General when the matter of his re-election by this parliament would come up before the judiciary. No more pliable it shall be to act beyond the constitution and morally too by the apex court to allow a parliament that has a five-year elected tenure to elect a president for ten years without any available constitutional provision. Next would be the question of his second skin. He has said in so many words that he would not like to be the emperor without his clothes. To discard any skin—however useful or useless– or to have it surgically removed — no doubt is an excruciating experience. Being Muslims we all know that.

I have been writing in my columns that he would never like to be an anorchous Samson without his manly-power bearing hair. His uniform is what hair were to Samson. The apex court would surely be approached by some one to save Pakistan army from the embarrassment of the day when it will have a COAS on wheel chair having outdone his normal tenure many times over. Besides, the higher judiciary would no more be restrained by the imbecile executive to do away the two-time restriction on the prime ministerial candidate, graduation degree as a pre-requisite to contest elections and speedier judicial relief would be forthcoming to the two exiled prime ministers to enable them to return home to participate in the next polls. Not only that, no more would the superior judiciary condone the King’s Party to get away with its electoral rigging as it was allowed by the Chief Election Commissioner and the higher judiciary in 2004 elections.

However, the Economist believes: “General Musharraf would struggle to repeat this performance. The popularity of the PML-Q—a rabble of renegades and opportunists recruited from Mr Sharif’s party—is falling with the general’s own numbers. Meanwhile, the PPP is growing stronger. According to the private poll conducted in February, 22.8% of respondents said they would vote for the “king’s party”, as the PML-Q is known; 31.7% chose the PPP. On May 5th, the day Mr Chaudhry’s caravan came to Lahore , the PML-Q had to cancel a rival rally for lack of support. “

Like the Stratfor Intelligence Report on Pakistan , London Economist also believes in the analytical predictions by political pundits that “General Musharraf will be forced to step aside, perhaps by the army itself. Failing this, he faces some distasteful choices. He can rig the election, as he did and 2002 referendum on his rule, though this would be more difficult against a pepped-up opposition. It might also annoy America , where support for him is flagging. According to Gary Ackerman, a Democrat who heads a congressional panel on South Asia, “The truth is, for our goals to be achieved in Pakistan , there should be more than one phone number there to dial.”

London Times recently described us as a “Failing Pakistan” following the ethnically engineered bloodbath by Musharraf supporters. State-sponsored as it was, it is a clear indication to a sad end. One could not agree more with the observation that when the writ of a state ceases to function, its boundaries also cease to exit. This is what has happened to Pakistan . And why not—as a SMS message doing the rounds—says Pakistan is a country where its Chief Justice is running from pillar to post, to seek justice for himself and where its army chief who is supposed to defend the country, has to lead a bunkered life to save and protect himself. Not only that, according to the General himself, he had to act against the Chief Justice to avert Pakistan from being declared a “failed state.”

Now he is caught up in a Catch-22 situation. The only exit route available to him is to form an interim national government and call it a day. He should be wise enough to show preference to preservation and not to sacrifice his first to save his second skin. His army colleagues should prevail on him to prevent him from going on a suicidal course that would even be too destructive for the entire military as an institution. They must beat a hasty retreat before the edge of precipice is crossed.

w.hasan@virgin.net

* Wajid Shamsul Hasan is Pakistan’s Ex High Commissioner at the UK